JET's final nuclear fusion experiment produced a record-breaking 69 megajoules of heat. Nice.

Clean energy could be ‘closer than ever’ after a nuclear fusion machine smashed a record::JET’s final nuclear fusion experiment produced a record-breaking 69 megajoules of heat. Nice.

  • Cocodapuf@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    9 months ago

    Those quick half-lives decay right away, losing a neutron, right? So that Berillium-11 just decays back into Berillium-10.

    The problem is that the blanket is constantly absorbing neutrons from the fusion reactions, that’s it’s job. So despite using simple berillium 5 to build your blanket, you end up with these heavy isotopes over time, and because the heavier ones quickly decay into lighter ones, you basically end up with a whole lot of berillium-10.